Roasted Garlic Bacon and Spinach Risotto

Holy moly, roasted garlic and bacon!! They taste darn good together, especially in a risotto!

It was another night, raiding the fridge and pantry for dinner ingredients. Now that it is getting dark so early, I am also more reluctant to venture out of the house after say 4:30 or so. Result: some pretty awesome concoctions among such this roasted garlic bacon and spinach risotto. MMMM

We had garlic. We always have garlic. What’s a house without garlic?

We had tons of spinach. Steve bought a little too much last week when he decided to make the most heavenly creamed spinach and we reaped the benefits tonight!

We also had, bacon. MMMmm, good ole bacon.

And they all happen to taste really delicious together.

Start by roasting that garlic. It really doesn’t take as much time as you think! Just crank up the heat on your toaster oven a little higher and it won’t take as long!

Preheat the oven to 375. Chop the top off of your garlic. I used just part of a bulb, but you can roast a whole bulb. It’s all good.

Put it in an oven safe bowl with about 3 tablespoons of olive oil drizzled over the top!

Cover the bowl with foil and place in the oven for about 35 minutes. Make sure to check it a few times to see that it is not burning!

On to the rest of the goodies…

Chop up dat bacon. 4-5 slices should do.

Let the bacon chill out for a little bit while you start heating 2 Tablespoons of butter and 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan.

Once it melts, toss the whole container of spinach into the pot. It cooks down fast!

Then it will look like this!

Let it cool a lil once it’s out of the pot and then start choppin’ it up!

In the same pot you just had the spinach in, add the bacon. Get it sizzlin’

Drain the bacon bits out of their fatty goodness and set aside. The crispness of them is sooo good in the creamy risotto.

Chop up a whole onion into a nice fine dice.

Add some more butter to the bacon pot, about another 2 Tablespoons. Then add the onions.

Saute the onion until it is nice and soft.

I added about 4 cloves of fresh garlic too. I just love it too much.

Add about 2 cups of rice, exact amounts don’t really matter in this dish because you keep adding broth until it is al dente anyway. So, if you put a little more or a little less than 2 cups of rice, it doesn’t matter!

All the grains should be glistening and you can let them brown a little and get toasty.

Then add the wine, make sure it is room temp, so you don’t shock the rice!! Use about 1 cup.

Stir it a little until the wine is absorbed.

Then comes the crazy stirring time.

Add a ladle full of broth at a time, stirring vigorously scooping and swirling, incorporating as much air as you can into the rice.

Never let it absorb all of the liquid. You want the broth to be a nice viscous sauce in the rice.